Brookside star’s theme park goes into liquidation

Published Tuesday 7 December 2004 at 11:55 by Anthony Garvey

Children’s adventure theme park Poga’s Wonderland, launched earlier this year by Irish actor and former Brookside star Bryan Murray, has gone into liquidation owing workers and suppliers 1.47 million euro.

A creditors’ meeting in Dublin was told that the venture, which featured Poga, an Irish giant and operated on a site at Kill, County Kildare, had ceased trading at the end of August after just two months. More than 100 staff, many of them students, are owed 72,133 euro as a result of the failure. The biggest creditor is Irish advertising agency AFA O’Meara which is owed 273,184 euro.

According to the directors of Poga’s Wonderland Ltd, Murray and Kathleen Lambe, the company’s assets are valued at 91,000 euro, leaving a total deficit of 1.38 million euro. Accountant John McStay, who was appointed liquidator, said there was little prospect of ordinary creditors recovering anything from the company.

The park’s launch had received high profile publicity. Actor Murray, who played the infamous Brookside wife beater and abusive father, memorably buried under the patio, had been given extensive press and TV coverage across Ireland. He described the collapse of the company as “over three years’ hard work going down the pan”.

Speaking after the creditors’ meeting, Murray insisted the company had adequate financing before the park opened. “I thought we had a great venture in what was a new Irish theme park and that it would go on and on. The people who heard about it and came liked it. Unfortunately, not enough people heard about it and not enough people came. In the end, we only got 15,000 customers, far fewer than we had expected,” he said.

Two companies with which Murray and Lambe are connected, Islandbridge Productions and Toybox Productions, are listed among the creditors as is Richard Pawley, one of the project’s backers. They are said to be owed nearly 600,000 euro.